The iOS fantasy game role-playing game Infinity Blade III is one of the best mobile games out there — and a huge drag on your phone’s storage. (Photo provided by ChAIR)

In case you missed them recently in The Denver Post, here are a couple gaming-related stories with consumer angles that you should check out:

* The debate over used video games, which finds developers and console makers pitting themselves against chains like GameStop, seems likely to continue for years. But if there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that you can save a ton of money buying used games instead of forking over $60 to own them as soon as they’re released. Denver Post reporter Jordan Gonzalez has the scoop on how to get the most out of used games, whether you’re buying, selling or trading. Check out his full story on DenverPost.com.

* Most smartphone games that aren’t manipulative “free to play” titles are worth keeping, otherwise we wouldn’t have plucked down $1-$6 for them in the first place. But they can also be storage hogs, so if you’re swiftly running out of memory on your iPhone or Android, it might be time to seriously consider what’s worth keeping (I’m looking at you, multi-gig Infinity Blade series). Check out the full article from today’s $mart consumer section for more hardware-saving tips.

The Mile High City nerds in Chemistry Club have developed a new micro-video game for their single “Navigator.”

Anyone familiar with Denver synth-pop band Chemistry Club would be a fool to question its nerd credentials. From the whip-smart lyrics to its bubbling logo and choice of gigs — including a couple consecutive Denver Comic Con-related events — these guys are the real deal.

But for those purely hypothetical outliers who think the band’s commitment to nerd culture is a passing phase, there’s also this: the quartet has released an original video game to accompany its single “Navigator,” which the band will celebrate with a Saturday, Aug. 2 show at the 1Up Colfax barcade.

The description for the brightly-colored game says it all: “Follow two robots as they escape a bleak world and search for a brighter future among the clouds and stars.”

For an impromptu indie micro-game tied to the release of a song, it’s got a surprisingly thoughtful aesthetic. It’s also an inspired marketing tool, given that the game acts as a portal to the band’s music and online presence.

I promised myself I wouldn’t spend any money on Angry Birds Go!, and as of last week, I had finished more than half the game without doing so.

The free-to-download, free-to-play racing game, which was released in December, is like many of its ilk: the basics don’t cost a thing, but if you want to keep racing with better resources or after your turn is up, real-world cash is required.

And therein lies the addictive pleasure of gaming in general and free-to-play games in particular. We want to level up, to flaunt our scores on social media and leaderboards. We want to master this stupid time waster that somehow grips our brains for hours on end.

But we always run up against a wall. We’re only $5 — or $10 or $20 — away from owing the best cart or the most upgrades. We feel like second-class citizens only using the default options, but we refuse to give in to the manipulative format and buy more. Are we cheap or just practical?

Adding and matching tiles is simple, but the real draw of the new iOs game Threes! is discovering and mastering its more complex patterns.

Sitting atop the App Store’s list of top downloads is Threes!, a new iOS game from Servio. Simpler than Sudoku, the puzzle game’s initial focus on adding and matching makes it accessible to just about anyone.

What keeps them playing, however, involves more complex calculations.

The player is tasked with keeping a four-by-four grid from filling with a turn-by-turn spew of tiles colored red (always numbered one), blue (always numbered two) and the randomly numbered whites. The player controls the movement of the tiles on the grid via finger. Matching two of the same number creates a single tile of their sum, just as matching a red tile with a blue creates three.

Just like Tetris, the player gets to see the incoming tile, so the real strategy in Threes! is in anticipating precisely where it’ll land and which tile will come next. By holding their fingers to the screen, players can nudge tiles into potential combinations to gauge their options before making a move.

[media-credit name=”Gameloft” align=”alignnone” width=”495″][/media-credit] A University of Minnesota study found that when college students played Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation on iPads, 31 percent of them expressed varying degrees of motion sickness — and even more if they used a stand.

There’s a definitive link between mobile gaming and motion sickness, according to a recent study from the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development.

Under controlled conditions, the study’s participants played video games with two separate control schemes on iPads. Half were given “tilt mode,” in which participants controlled the game through physical movement of the device – titles similar to Frisbee Forever or SuperBall 3.

The other half played “touch mode” titles, the more common type of mobile game which requires constant use of one’s finger. These players were five times more likely to experience motion sickness, according to the report.

The monsters never stop coming for the Bardbarian, a new tower defense title available on iOs and Android.

Brad the Barbarian has grown tired of his role as village protector, or so we’re told in the opening credits of Bardbarian, a new mobile title from TreeFortress available on iOs and Android for 99 cents. He lives a life of existential misery, where the monsters never stop coming.

Brad decides to solve his problem by refashioning his battle axe into an axe-shaped guitar. No longer swinging at the beasties that lumber toward the Town Crystal, he’s the Bardbarian.

He simply sits back and jams on his makeshift instrument, producing notes that can be used to call upon fellow defenders to join his battle posse or power them up at any given moment.

The free third-person shooter app has solid mechanics yet is plagued with the worst freemium gaming has to offer.

As a new Robocop enters America’s theaters, he comes equipped with state-of-the-art marketing: Robocop, the free mobile game from Glu Mobile available on iOs and Android.

I watched the remake’s trailer last September and decided to do what I could to avoid any and all promotion. Yet becoming aware of Robocop’s freemium counterpart, I couldn’t resist an opportunity to, as a critic, criticize. I was surprised — both by the decent third-person shooter mechanics and by what ultimately repulsed me, the most noxious elements I’ve ever encountered in gaming.

Mario and his friends may be going mobile as the struggling Nintendo announced the company is developing content for smartphones.

Struggling gaming giant Nintendo announced today the company is currently developing content for smart phones, as noted in this translation of a third quarter fiscal presentation from company president Satoru Iwata.

The move into mobile devices will not come as a surprise to those familiar with the company’s woes, namely its 30 percent drop in profit, a disaster precipitated by weak sales of the Wii U console. Several top executives accepted pay cuts, including Satoru.

“I have often heard the opinion from many that Nintendo should release its first-party content on smart devices,” Satoru said. “The rationale behind such a suggestion, in my view, is that it would be illogical not to expand our business on smart devices given that they have outsold dedicated video game systems by a large margin.”

A&E reporter John Wenzel has covered a variety of topics for The Denver Post over the years, including video games, comedy, music and the fine arts. He's been playing and loving video games since his dad brought home a sweet ColecoVision in 1983. Catch him on PSN as beardsandgum.

Hugh got his start writing for the Cheyenne and Woodmen Edition newspapers in Colorado Springs. In 2011 he moved to Denver where he has written for Denver Urban Spectrum and Colorado Community Media’s Wheat Ridge Transcript. Hugh joined The Denver Post in 2014 as an editorial assistant.

Bryan Moore joined The Denver Post sports department in 1997 and has worked in many phases of producing the daily sports section ever since, specifically focusing on coverage of the Denver Broncos, Colorado Rockies, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, and college football and basketball.